Teaming up with artist Sarah Welch again on another Co-Lab production, we set to work to print up a series of “gigposters” for a collaborative art show.

Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing covered ideas of artifice, reproduction, copy, and substitution among the artwork of three Texas artists currently located in three different regions of the United States. The poster design for this project was adapted from an original drawing by Sarah Welch, and serves as a reference to a video work created to accompany the opening, in which the artist continually bites and snuggles against a pillow while a chopped & screwed rendition of Marvin Gaye’s signature song played. This small edition of hand-printed posters was available for sale during the opening, and is still available in a smaller quantity on our Etsy store.

Here is the collective statement for the exhibit:

“What the artifice does is create an anxiety over our own place in the scheme of reality. Whether a placeholder, substitution, or perfect copy, a double is a replacement, with its own motives. Sarah Welch, Sarah Crowe, and Graham Austin explore contemporary forms of substitution in “AIN’T NOTHIN LIKE THE REAL THING”, with a scoping range of media, focused upon questions of legitimacy and nostalgia that invariably arise when confronted with the doppelgangers wearing human, linguistic, or environmental form.”

Designer Julie came to us never before having worked with letterpress, so how could we refuse to help walk her through the process for these beautiful business cards?

Printed on our favorite cotton stock, Holyoke 140# cotton, these simple business cards use a single pass of purple ink and a blind impression run to give a little something extra to an everyday business need. And with a final cost of less than a dollar per card, it’s an impression that won’t break the bank.

Julie isn’t alone in needing a bit of guidance when ordering traditional ephemera for letterpress. There are a lot of options available to purchasers of traditional printmaking, ranging from depth of impression to color and inking of the finished project. Nearly every aspect is customizable, but it’s difficult to utilize those options without prior experience in a medium. And although it may take a little extra correspondence at the onset of a project, I really enjoy introducing the process of printing to new print purchasers. It’s not entirely selfless either, as educated print designers produce satisfying work for me to print on my presses!

A lot of traditional elements of printing as a craft seem to be disappearing from our consciousness. Little things, like the practice of correctly cutting paper and taking into consideration the register side of a given stock throughout a run in order to ensure a stable edition. We’re passionate about learning these elements of a craft, and it’s always a pleasure to share what we learn with others in order to preserve these tidbits for future use.

In celebration of this project, we’re going to offer a special on business cards in this style. Check out our Etsy store to see if this offer still stands! We’d love to take your designs and put them on our press!

After months of operating as a commercial print shop, one question began to ride on our nerves here in the shop. Even in encounters unrelated to our print trade, it would seep out of the lips of acquaintances and strangers alike. The question was always “Do you have a business card?” And our response? “Well, we’ve been meaning to do something about that…”

I am a printer, afterall. So it’s a bit embarrassing to not have your own printed card!

Well, with it feeling like years had passed since we ordered a plate for printing business cards, we finally got down to brass tacks and took our good intentions to press. You might think that printing my own work would be the most tedious of all exercises, but honestly it’s sometimes fun to take a back seat to the process and just see how things turn out after a pass through the press. No elaborate press checks, no Pantone swatches to match… just an afternoon spent working an antique press.

In the end, things turned out rather nice with a set of business cards printed on scrap Holyoke fine cotton paper. We used a reverse in the plate for this project, so the “raised” areas in white are actually the natural texture and color of the paper. Areas in black were printed with standard Van Son rubber base plus ink. You can notice on these cards one of letterpress’s characteristic “weaknesses,” which is the salty or marbled appearance of large solid areas. But, far from hurting the final look of this project, the marbling helps to honestly present the medium the card was produced in.

Some edges got a little fuzzy on these cards, as they were cut down by hand, but hey– at this point it’s nice to just say “Yes!” when people ask that familiar question.

This past holiday season, Vrooooom Press was lucky enough to have an opportunity to work with Terrence Moline, a local designer and illustrator here in Austin, Texas. His operation, TMoline Visual Communication, produces some excellent work for print and web, and we’ve collaborated in the past on poster printing for a few local events.

This time around, Terrence contacted us for more information about our letterpress printing, hoping to find a better way to produce his annual thank you cards for clients and friends. Previously printed through print-on-demand services, the cards carried a high price point without much individuality aside from the strength of his own designs. After discussing how we could manage to produce a series of five designs without breaking the bank in high-end materials and printing plates, we came across the idea of running all 5 designs in the same color. This allowed the cards to share a common graphical element, despite the differences in illustration between each. It also helped to avoid a bulk of the setup fees associated with cleaning the press between each card run, which was limited to about 100 cards per design. A few press checks later, and poof! the cards were complete and ready to go to work on thanking TMoline’s clients.

Printed on 140# Holyoke cotton stock (which I must say, is one of my favorite stocks to work with) with a single pass of metallic copper ink using photopolymer plates. Check out the entire series in the gallery below.

Our thanks also go to Terrence for the stunning photos featured below. Thank you!

But what is a “Weird Weeds Deconstructed?” Well, as part of their mission to support experimental music and process in Austin, C.O.T.F.G. presented three separate solo performances from the members of the band Weird Weeds. The night’s performance was an excellent opportunity to see all of the individual techniques of band members separated from their usual whole while giving those familiar with the music a chance to think about how the parts contribute the the band’s final sound.

This poster, measuring 20″x26″, was printed by hand at our studio and combines elements from drawings by Sarah Welch and James Beard, with Sarah providing the main figure’s illustration, and James providing the green fill and text work. Printed on 100# Cougar Opaque Florescent White paper with TW Ink.

Ultimately, we were able to satisfy both requirements while working with a strict budget. Saving on costs and tipping our hats towards more commercial print processes, we elected to design and create a traditional invitation with a not-so-traditional combination RSVP, save the date, and informational card that could be perforated by the recipient. I was really surprised at how easy it is to run a perforating rule on the N-series Kluge, as this project was the first excuse I had to test out the process. Using a 10 tooth-per-inch rule in two successive press runs, we perforated the reply card so that it could be filled out and returned in a separate envelope. A little extra accent was added to the project with a second run in green, which added extra ornamentation to the black text’s smooth curves and serifs.

Printed on 118# Reich Savoy cotton stock with rubber and oil based inks, we’re really taken with the final results, and think it gives a good indication of the kind of fine type-work that can be printed on photopolymer plates. Enjoy!

The original invitation mock-up included a strip of CMYK inspired benday dots behind the hot dog couple cut. However, after a meeting, we decided to simplify the pattern in order to print this project with only three plates, rather than four. An additional concern was a desire to balance an antique feel, accomplished by the off-white paper, with a vibrant selection of colors including pure magenta and cyan. After a series of press checks, we were able to get the colors just where they needed to be by mixing the inks in house. Heck, we were even lucky enough to snag some matching magenta envelopes to pull the whole thing off.

Later in the project, Laura and Zack elected to add a 2nd informational card to the project, with details about Austin area hotels and diversions. Both cards were ultimately printed on the same press sheet of 140# Holyoke Antique, which is a 100% cotton sheet distributed by Manifesto Press. I love to work with Holyoke, since the paper has an extremely soft finish and won’t break the bank on small projects, making it a great house sheet to consider for future projects. Without that extra help, we probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same depth of impression. You can also consider me a fan of the sheet’s uniformity, as we were able to hold an extremely tight edge on edge registration between the cyan and magenta plates.

All in all, I’m happy to have worked on this project, and hope you’ll enjoy taking a gander at the finished results below!

From first glimpse to completed project, we were super excited to work with Ashley and Matt on their custom letterpress save the date announcements. Printed on thick coaster stock, this double sided announcement really takes things to a new level with a nice, contemporary and friendly feel. Featuring an illustration by Ashley’s father and some design ninja layout from Matt himself, we did our best to compliment the design with a light, crisp impression on both sides. Although we had the option of printing the blue plate a little thicker, ultimately it was decided that we should print it “salty” in order to hone in on the process’s characteristic look.

Originally intended for production on the L Letterpress, Matt and Ashley contacted us directly with plates in hand when things were going a little too slowly and uncomfortably on their home press. Luckily for all of us, we were using the same photopolymer plates and could easily transfer the remaining production to Vrooooom Press’s Kluges. I’m sure this made the presses happy as well, since this project is the first we’ve tackled on the Kluges since their move!

1 color front and back. Edition of approximately 500.

Over the past few months, we’ve been lucky enough to collaborate with Austin’s Church of the Friendly Ghost to provide posters and various ephemera for their concert series. For those not familiar with this organization, C.O.T.F.G. is a nonprofit organization located under the Salvage Vanguard Theater’s umbrella. 100% volunteer run, and focused on organizing concerts for experimental musicians, the gang at the church are definitely the kind of group we like to offer our services to… did we mention this is all pro bono?

The New Media Art and Sound Summit, or N.M.A.S.S. is an upcoming festival organized by the church, and we were super excited to have a chance to provide a little hand printed ephemera to commemorate this inaugural year. Printed on 100% cotton Lettra, this limited edition of 300 festival passes is a combination of a slate gray letterpress print and bright red screenprinted text, which is actually drawn from an 1898 Hamilton Wood Type specimen book.

Now that we know that screenprinting and letterpress can work together in harmony, expect to see a lot more in the future that takes advantage of this combination of hand printed techniques!

The idea for this edition of prints came from a doodle I found in one of my older sketchbooks. At the same time, I wanted to try to push the limits of my current setup by printing a super fine halftone separation and a complicated 9 color split fountain. Some experimentation was also performed during the printing of this edition, which is why it exists in several different color-ways.

Hopefully, this print marks several new beginning for Vrooooom Press as we navigate away from using found imagery in our studio editions. We’re going to try and keep it old school with a daily sketch diary and more designs that carry a bit more of our own person touch in them. I don’t think this means that people should toss out digital process; it can be a powerful tool in the creative process. But it’s easy to get bogged down in the options and suffer creatively.

This edition was printed completely by hand, with each signed and numbered print measuring approximately 18″x24″. Edition of 50 between all color-ways.